File Sharing Is Not Pollution, And You Don't Need An ISP 'Tax' To Deal With It

from the sorry,-will dept

I like Will Page, the chief economist for PRS for Music (a UK collection society), quite a bit. We've had a number of fun conversations about the music industry and music industry economics -- some of which we've published here. While there are plenty of things I agree with him about, there are still many points on which we disagree. His most recent paper, advocating a mandatory ISP fee for file sharing (pdf) is a point where we completely disagree. Page's paper is getting some attention, and he presented it at the same event where Peter Jenner just called for a blanket license as well. But I fear that Page's paper, while it digs into some economic concepts, includes a few mistaken assumptions that drives the entire paper offline (though, in fairness to Page, he clearly states that for you to accept his thesis, you need to accept his assumptions).

The key assumption in the paper is the idea that file sharing creates a "negative spillover." He's basically saying that file sharing is pollution -- creating a negative impact where the cost is borne by different parties than those responsible for the problem. Such situations are cases where there is a "market failure." In theory (and there are some important recent challenges to some aspects of this theory), if the costs are not borne by those creating them, then it could create an inefficient outcome, potentially requiring some sort of intervention, either in the form of regulation or voluntary restraint. But, you have to be very careful in what you consider "pollution." After all, one could argue that the creation of, say, email represented "negative spillovers" for the makers of fax machines. After all, it created a "negative impact" on fax machine makers, borne by a different party than those who created it (internet folks). But, of course, that's ridiculous. That's just innovation and competition at work.

And, the claim of "negative spillovers" really doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Normal pollution generally involves companies doing the polluting and the public bearing the costs, in some manner. But that's not the situation with file sharing at all. The public isn't being harmed at all. In fact, they're better off. And, according to Page's own research, there's no evidence that musicians are worse off either. Also, it's not like the amount of music being created is going down. It's actually going way up. The only "harm" being done is to a few companies that make up the recording industry. That really doesn't sound like pollution. It sounds like competition and innovation. We should never mistake a more efficient market for pollution, but I fear that's what Page is doing here.

Page's report does suggest one other area where there might be some pollution: in the broadband networks. This is the somewhat ingenious part of the argument. He's effectively making the argument that the pollution is that more file sharing will clog broadband networks, so it's actually in the best interests of the ISPs to "tax" the behavior to decrease the clogging. ISPs have long resisted calls for any sort of blanket licensing, but they've also talked up supposed claims of "clogged" broadband pipes from too much traffic -- usually in attempts to fight calls for net neutrality. So by saying that such a tax would decrease congestion in the networks, Page has sort of caught the ISPs at their own game, and given them a "solution" to the problem. The only issue? The "problem" of network congestion is more or less a myth, used mainly by lobbyists to ward off net neutrality legislation. The broadband providers don't really have a congestion problem, and a music tax isn't going to help solve this non-existent problem anyway.

Again, to be fair, Page more or less admits this in a paragraph towards the end:

We want to make it clear that neither of the
above-mentioned options could be considered without accepting that
some sort of market failure has occurred and that in consequence some
form of regulation is required, and that regulation should seek to put
incentives and structures in place so that a market-based solution to the
value of media on networks can evolve.

But, of course, most people will miss that paragraph and won't necessarily consider the assumptions being made.

I also think that the paper doesn't recognize the inefficiencies and economic costs created by blanket licensing/collective licensing regimes (though, to be fair, that wasn't the focus of the paper at all).

Either way, I chatted briefly with Page while writing this up, and he pointed out that the paper is focused specifically on the realities of the UK market under the Digital Economy Act, and that it shouldn't be generalized for other markets -- which, again, is a fair statement, though I'm not sure it changes any of the economic assumption questions (and, also could make the paper itself obsolete if the DEA is repealed, as some still believe will happen). Either way, we're going to try to find some time in the near future to have a more thorough discussion/Q&A on the topic and see if we can dig into some of those assumptions.

Re:

As someone who regularly agrees with Mike, I have to agree with you on the icon thing. Applying it retroactively was either very very poorly thought out or it was disingenuous. I find it hard to imagine techdirt didn't think about the potential unintended consequences much before retroactively inserting such unique identifiers. It's one thing to insert them from this point onwards, but it's rather mistrustful to insert them retroactively when people had an expectation that such posts will not easily be correlated with other posts.

Re: Re:

Don't get your panties on a knot. My earlier posts have different icons. I assume they are associated to IP addresses. Just reboot your modem and get a new IP crybaby.

If you are stuck on a fixed IP, then, if you wanted to even
try to remain anonymous, you should probably use some sort of proxy, or use tor.

Even if people bother to make a trace of all of your conversations, you can still avoid accountability by magically disappearing. Since you cannot be identified (you are still anonymous), you can just resurface later with a different IP address and keep causing mayhem.

Re: Re: Re:

I was told by my ISP that my IP address is dynamic and does in fact change every so often (I was told it should change very day actually). Apparently it seems to be static because no matter how far back I've gone the icon is the same. So either my IP address is static or its dynamic but just hasn't changed yet or techdirt is using some static aspect of my hostmask to identify me (which is done regularly on IRC to help enforce long term bans. but since I don't memorize my IP address I don't know).

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Your ISP was half right right. Your IP address is always dynamically assigned unless you have purchase a business account, and requested a static IP address. The reason you have not seen a change in your IP address is that on a DHCP IP address you have what is called a lease time. If you open up a command prompt and type ipconfig /all you will get a bunch of info. Scroll down till you see Lease Obtained, and Lease Expired. That will tell you when you got your ISP's DHCP server handed out your address, and when you should expect to get a new one.

You don't always get a new one when the lease time expires. If you leave your PC on all the time when the lease time expires, and you're still connected online the DHCP server will usually hand out the same address.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

"open up a command prompt and type ipconfig /all you will get a bunch of info. Scroll down till you see Lease Obtained, and Lease Expired. That will tell you when you got your ISP's DHCP server handed out your address"

What you are describing sounds like a direct connection to the ISP. This is not recommended. Most home setups these days involves a gateway which is really just a modem, some have a switch other have a router, most all have NAT. Anyways, the point being that your computer connects to the gateway and obtains an IPaddr from the gateway DHCP server, probably in the 192.168.x.x range. The gateway connects to your ISP and obtains a different IPaddr from the ISP DHCP server, this addr is not within the 192.168.x.x range. When you enter the command ipconfig /all at the command prompt on your windows box, the response describes your PC connection to your internal network, not the ISP network. - Unless you are directly connected, which is a very bad idea for many reasons. Hope this helps.

Re: Re:

This has been, by far, our most requested feature: a way to keep AC's straight (either that or ban all ACs). Multiple people actually suggested using the Gravatars as a "nice feature" for readers here.

Nothing in the way this was done diminishes your anonymity, as multiple people have pointed out. All it does is make it easier for people to keep conversations straight (a constant complaint from users).

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Re: Re:

People that wanted to identify themselves before had a very simple mechanism for doing so, and chose not to. People that still want to remain truly anonymous will find ways to do so no matter what. All this has done is make it harder for these users - these fans - to get what they want.

Too bad that this effort has been wasted in adding anonymity rights management (ARM) to the site, rather than focusing on innovation.

Re: Re: Re:

"People that wanted to identify themselves before had a very simple mechanism for doing so, and chose not to. People that still want to remain truly anonymous will find ways to do so no matter what."

In that case, what is the problem? Those who still want to be anonymous can be and everyone can follow conversations easier. The fact you post without encryption is far more of an issue for your privacy and anonymity than identicons.

Re: Re:

"You're still anonymous."

There are a lot of corporate interests that would go through a LOT of effort and spend lots of resources to figure out who is who. If you are posting under a pseudo-name that you know made you are taking such into consideration before each post to ensure that it is very difficult for anyone to be able to collect enough information to ensure that the collective body of information on you is enough to uniquely identify one person. For instance I may know that Dark Helmet is from Chicago (and there are other things I know about him too) and that alone narrows down who he is a lot. but it's still not enough to uniquely identify him and he is careful to ensure that he doesn't present enough techdirt information on himself such that no one else could possibly fit the description. People are mindful of this stuff. While posting I was not mindful because it never even crossed my mind something like this could happen. I'm very upset and I'm about done posting here.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Dude, for someone that wants to remain anonymous, you sure are exposing yourself.

Use tor.
Use a secure proxy.
Use an alias and you won't even _get_ an image. Change your alias sometimes so people can't trace you.

You realize that, the more you post, the more you open yourself to a (supposed) attack don't you? Just keep posting, and maybe some "detective" will find you an attractive target and start tracing you. According to you, that is.

Of course, someone smart could just crack the techdirt servers and access thousands of logs and get __actual__ data on people (IP addresses, emails, ...). I think it would be a lot easier than manually compiling the posting history of several users.

(And I just realized that I may owe money or cookies to someone if I keep posting).

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

"You realize that, the more you post, the more you open yourself to a (supposed) attack don't you? Just keep posting, and maybe some "detective" will find you an attractive target and start tracing you. According to you, that is."

No, because I'm not currently posting anything about myself so it won't make a difference. Just like you currently aren't.

if there were to be some form of blanket license then i as a payer of that license would do even more file sahring than i do now (i only ever DL past their lifetime not available to buy stuff). if a license were introduced id be showing my mom how to download, my neighbors, anyone who wanted to know simply because they've already paid for it.

We have nothing but the entertainment industries' word that a "negative spillover" exists, and quite frankly it's a massive assumption. To instate a levy (read: a tax) for these industries without a shred of evidence would be totally unfair on the ISPs and ultimately the British public who'll have to pay for it.
Of course, I'm not saying a few million pounds in lobbying won't convince our politicians, just like with the Digital Economy Act, but that won't make it right.
What would the purpose of the levy be? Will they stop harassing UK netizens about copyright if the levy is introduced? Most likely not.
More crucially, if they can't estimate the size of the "spillover", or even its polarity, how are they going to decide how much the levy is going to be? Will they pull a number out of their arses like they usually do?
1 trillion quid will do, k tnx bai.
I really don't think this will work.

I agree 'it' wont work

Taxes and royalty's have very opposite intentions and effects.
Royalties exist to reward the unusual; the successful- the competitive.
Tariffs,such as the one Mr Page is advocating, exist to protect uncompetitive industries.

So when i saw the headline, I first thought awesome, if i am going to get taxed I might as well. Then i realized it was only for people who were file sharing. Course if they are going to tax me, doesn't that make it legal?

The absurd? In Italy we have a similar tax (0.50€ for every CD-DVD-HD because there is the possibility that they would be used for storing copyrighted material), but this didn't change anything: the SIAE continue to harass everyone.

Re:

Does some connection exist between all these "national" bodies? To the uninformed, it would appear that quite a bit of collusion goes on, as the USA, UK, Dutch, Swedish and Italian (at least) versions of the RIAA seem to all have adopted close variants of the "sue everybody" stratigy.

It's hard for me to believe that at least one national recording industry body wouldn't do something other than try to maintain an extra-tight grip on popular culture. So, I'd have to say that I suspect that a lot of the "national" bodies of recording lables are actual puppets of the US' RIAA or some variant.

negative spillovers?

I am not as up to speed on the UK's approach to handling the Internet "problem" as I would like to be. From what I have heard, it seems that they have not approached it with the same (relatively) hands-off approach we have had here in the US.

This may be one area where our strict adherence to the free market philosophy here in the US has actually benefited the public. Given that the Internet is a (huge)new marketplace. I am guessing that the powers that be here in the US thought that they could control it just as they have controlled so many other markets. Now they have realized that it is out of their control, and all of these lawsuits and calls for new legislation, regulation and taxes sounds a lot like sour grapes and whining to my ear.

I am not a fan of the term "negative spillovers" as it is applied in this context. Characterizing the advent of a new marketplace as a market failure only makes sense if you already had a good position in the formerly prevailing (traditional) marketplace. Even then, it seems that being open to new possibilities rather than stubbornly clinging to the familiar offers greater opportunities in thee future. From what I understand, the corporate form was constructed with the aim of encouraging greater risk-taking in order to generate greater profits. That a large number of existing established corporations are unwilling to take the risk of venturing into this new marketplace created by the Internet can also be called a "market failure."

I am not opposed to having the FCC regulate the Internet here in the US. In my opinion, we would be better off having the government install the infrastructure than leaving it to private corporations who really do not care whether or not you have access at all, except that they want to collect your monthly fee.

The ISPs charge what the market will bear and not a penny less. They are corporations looking to make a profit. Not one of the big ISP players cares what you do through their connections unless it interferes with another of their business interests, which it generally does. AT&T did not like Skype because it cut into the market for person to person communications. Comcast would prefer that their customers not stream videos online because it cuts into their Cable TV revenues.

One last thought: Can it be true that the British still think the way to solve a problem caused by a new marketplace is to tax it? That strategy has not worked out so well in the past. Might be time for a new solution?

I have to say this. Mike Masnick is a bitch who doesnt care about the anonymity of his users. Seriously just fuck him. If you wanted to make it easy for people to know who they are interacting with, make it local to a fucking thread. Dont make it global. And those who are defending Mike, I hope RIAA finds who you are from your history of commenting and then fucks you over by suing you for millions worth. Bruce Ediger, I am looking at you. btw Mike if you think you are hot shit, then fuck you.

Re:

You are seriously retarded. I have posted here for about three month or so. I'll pay you money (or cookies if you prefer) if you can collect a history of 10 of my posts.

Get this through your thick skull: You are anonymous. I can't (nor can anyone that posts here) know who you are. If you are seriously concerned with your anonymity, maybe you should have used measures to protect yourself.

In regard to the RIAA:
The RIAA can kiss my shiny a** because:

1- I'm outside of their jurisdiction. They have no power here.

2- They can't find me unless Mike gives them my IP address linked to my posts. And even then, they would have to sweat to find me. And after all that, they would probably nail the wrong person. Notice that they could already do this (since TechDirt, like any decent operation, logs their traffic).

Re: Re:

"I'll pay you money (or cookies if you prefer) if you can collect a history of 10 of my posts."

You may have a different ISP setup than others where your IP address/hostmask changes more often than others. Don't assume your circumstances are the same as others.

"You are anonymous."

It's not as difficult as you think for someone with the resources to collect seemingly disparate pieces of information and put it together to find someone. Detectives do it all the time.

Again, you're new here so the collective body of information that you posted within a single hostmask/IP address maybe limited but don't assume that of others. Techdirts decision to do what they did was very poorly thought out at best.

Re:

Actually, this is great because Techdirt uses Gravitar to generate the icon. The icon is a MD5 Hash,
a very insecure algorythm. The U. S. Department of Homeland Security said MD5 "should be considered cryptographically broken and unsuitable for further use.

The icon is based on a MD5 Hash, a very insecure algorythm. The U. S. Department of Homeland Security said MD5 "should be considered cryptographically broken and unsuitable for further use." But har har... it's acceptable for TechDirt!

Researcher, M.M.J Stevens wrote about unencrypting MD5s as part of his Master's Thesis.

The flaky goodness of outsourced snowflakes in July

The icon is based on a MD5 Hash, a very insecure algorythm. In fact, the U. S. Department of Homeland Security said MD5 "should be considered cryptographically broken and unsuitable for further use." If Techdirt is sending your IP address in a MD5 Hash, it can't be that hard to break.

Re: The flaky goodness of outsourced snowflakes in July

From my understanding, the hash value is used as a seed to generate the image. Now you have two problems:

1- You don't know the value that is used in the hash calculation. It could be a randomly generated value (only techdirt can help us on this one).

2- You don't know what algorithm is used to generate the images (only Gravatar can help us with this).

Without knowing any of this, you cannot easily extract any data from the image. You could try to break "some" hash value, but what value? Use the image as a bitmap and map the images "bits" into ASCII characters? It's a possibility, but given that the image patterns are "nicely behaved" I really doubt that the actual hash value is encoded in the image itself.

I did download a random image file to (try to) analyze it and I noticed that they have (apparently) random names. I certainly hope that the file name has nothing to do with the hash value.

Mike (or anyone at techdirt), in the interest of openness and in the interest of the security of your readers, could you please explain how the images are generated? Is there any kind of information (IP address, for example) encoded in them that could be used to trace us?

Re: Re: Re: The flaky goodness of outsourced snowflakes in July

They can see my browser, operating system, and ISP. What is it I'm supposed to be worried about, exactly? Not trying to be snotty, but really - based on that page, what is the problem you're pointing out?

Re: Re: Re: Re: The flaky goodness of outsourced snowflakes in July

I had NoScript on, and half of the tests failed. The site knows nothing more about me than what I already expected.

In fact, I think we can get all that information without digging in much. I haven't developed webpages for a while, but I think there were basic ways of knowing the browser, resolution and OS of people that came to a site (not sure if it was done in pure HTML or Javascript). Anyone can do that with minimal effort, so I don't see what the AC above is so freaked out about.

Re: Re: Re: The flaky goodness of outsourced snowflakes in July

Yeah, I know.

The name Gravatar comes from the post above. I was just pointing out that our entire security model relies on those two points: The string that is used to generate the hash value and the algorithm used to generate the image.

Re: Re: Re: Re: The flaky goodness of outsourced snowflakes in July

No... because if I know my IP address and I tried all those possibilities on my IP address how many practical renditions of my IP address could there be? Once I find how my IP address was rendered in the hash then I just follow that same rendition pattern upon trying to crack other peoples addresses if I assume that the IP address of others were rendered the same way.

To say that it's similar to a brute force is not the same, if you know a lot about a key (ie: my IP address) and what you don't know is only a very small aspect of the key then you are effectively only trying to crack the aspect of the key you don't know. A brute force means you know nothing about what you are trying to crack and are trying to find it by trying everything. If you know something about what you are trying to crack it's not a brute force.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The flaky goodness of outsourced snowflakes in July

Once I find how my IP address was rendered in the hash then I just follow that same rendition pattern upon trying to crack other peoples addresses if I assume that the IP address of others were rendered the same way.

That may or may not be an accurate assumption. They could generate a random character string to hash along with your IP address (called "salt"). Each IP would have its salt stored (in a secure location of course) with it, and that would really throw a wrench into the kind of attack you mention. I'm not saying that's what they've done, but it's possible.

Re: The flaky goodness of outsourced snowflakes in July

The war on drugs may affect the big pharma industry after all, with drug cartels getting the ability to produce chemicals they can find themselves battling a well funded, resilient group of people that don't fallow laws anyways LoL

That could be the worst nightmare for pharma people, instead of doing drugs, drug dealers will be inundating the market with cheap drugs for ill people. They would buy in droves.

The flaky goodness of outsourced snowflakes in July

Re: The flaky goodness of outsourced snowflakes in July

Lol show the rest of the post and I might believe you. It is obviously faked. The rest of Mike's post and even the time stamp has been left out of the first image. And, anyone can fake an html page. You will have to do a little better.

if you want my ip address come ask

Re: if you want my ip address come ask

I hope he salted the hashsum. For those (like myself) who use IRC it would be easy for anyone to take the hashsum of my IP address and find which posts on techdirt are mine. and what is the hashsum of, the hostmask or the IP address?

If it's the IP address it's a 32 bit IP address, do you know how easy it is to brute force that? Especially after removing the combinations that are not included on the Internet (ie: ones that start with 192, 172, 10).

I really hope techdirt didn't put so little thought into this as to put an unsalted hash of our IP addresses on here.

Re: Re: Re: Re: if you want my ip address come ask

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: if you want my ip address come ask

Yeah! after the "Patriotic Act", After "Facebook", after "Google(many blunders)", after a lot of judgments unmasking people, after a tone of lawsuits only the dumb still don't do something about protecting their privacy.

By the way guys, they're not directly hashing your IP address. There's obviously a salt, or even a pass through another encryption hash before running it through md5, which is required to generate the image via the Gravatar website.

Just look up your IP address, run a quick md5 on it, then compare the results with the image icon source on a post of yours.

Still, this does deprive an element of anonymity one would expect when posting anonymously. The fact that all of your posts, not counting dynamic IP changes, proxies, etc, which would of course either change or obfuscate your actual address, can be tracked with a unique post icon is hardly what one would consider true anonymity, or anything close to it.

I don't think people are getting upset because they think that somehow, now, everyone will know who they are, but now all of their anonymous posts will be linked and identified via this post icon. The whole point of anonymity is not to be able to be identified, at all, in any aspect.

Anonymous posters don't want to be a unique and beautiful snowflake, they want to be drowned in the sea of general population, and hopefully never found.

As a side opinion, though, this is a pretty cool feature. One that I'm sure could provide useful and interesting when applied in a different manner.

Ironic Alert

It seems that all of the people who are compaining about Techdirt recording their IP addresses, are the same ones who belive that OSP's should turn over those same IP's to private entities to fight "piracy." And that this same data is proof of infringement.

Re: Ironic Alert

I believe no such thing and at least one other person at Jul 17th, 2010 @ 1:14pm seems to believe no such thing either based on his/her apparent dislike for the RIAA. I'm darn near an IP abolishionist though my position constantly changes from wanting the laws substantially diminished to wanting them destroyed altogether.

Re: Re: Ironic Alert

Yeah I am the one who posted at 1.14 PM. Sorry I lost my temper there, but as I said it's totally unnecessary to link to a global avatar. Of course now would be a test to see if the avatar is made from some cookies or via IP address, because I reside in a dynamic IP range. People have not considered it might be due to a number stored in my browser's cookies. Even then Mike to qoute a fav 4chan meme "SON I am DISSAPOINT". It doesnt matter who I am but rather what I post. Please dont forget that. There is no reason for people to piece together what I posted previously. If I am a faggot, so be it in this thread only. It has no relation to what I post later.

I am once again the one from 1:14PM. Bruce Ediger you must be the biggest troll in the history of Techdirt aren't you? You have registered a profile and certainly gotten into the ranks of trusted Techdirt readers, arent you, while aiming to troll techdirt readers? If you dont agree with someone they are a troll really? Because if I am a troll then certainly you are the biggest troll possible, I salute you the Master Troll. I would like your advice on how to troll intelligent people from a tech website.

BTW It is confirmed now. Since I am still using the same browser without clearing my cache, the icon corresponds to the IP adresss only. So Mike I hope you urself remember telling to the MPAA that IP address is not enough to identify a person. So please implement your own fucking solution or else I will call you for who you are really i.e a HYPPOCRITE.

Re:

If you're not a troll, Mr Grumpyflakes, why do you keep threatening (a.k.a. "wishing for") RIAA and/or MPAA reprisals for people who disagree with you?

I see two different icons, Grouchyflakes. The one for Jul 17th, 2010 @ 1:14pm has quite a different appearance than the one for Jul 18th, 2010 @ 3:29am. So it's *not* confirmed. Further, my recollection of the 1:14pm Snowflake, viewed on Friday, is different that it's appearance today. Color was a sort of pea-soup green, now it's brownish, and much sparser.

So, BTN it is not confirmed now.

Furthermore, Crabbyflakes, I haven't referred to a non-anonymous-coward as a "troll" at all. On TechDirt, I believe (although I can't confirm, they are "anonymous" cowards, after all, despite the flakes) I have only told two different on-line identities they're trolls.

But I will admit to asking some leading questions. The usual complaints about "how will the starving artists get paid!" when price of a copy of music drops to almost zero seem a bit odd when considered in the usual way that Free Market Economics considers this sort of thing. Innovations leading to drops in marginal cost of production are generally applauded as Good For Society. And competition usually drops the price of a good to the marginal cost of production. We, as a society, generally don't prop up firms that refuse to adapt to a changed market. Heck, we even let American Motors get bought by Chrysler a few years ago, didn't we?

Call me a troll all you want, but asking questions, even questions that are difficult to answer honestly without resorting to propagandistic usagges, doesn't really constitut "trolling" in many people's books.

I see what you did

What is the reason for all of this worry over the icons or snowflakes or whatever you want to call them? I think its weird that you are freaking out about this.

Perhaps one of the multitude of anonymous voices would like to explain why you find the identifying icons so outrageous. Personally, I find them helpful because many comments are posted by anonymous authors, and most of those posts are not titled. The result is a bunch of "Re: Re: Re:" replies to posts written by what appears to be one anonymous author.

Re: I see what you did

I don't have a problem. I find it somewhat useful. And my anonymity is still preserved.

The main concern right (well, from the one person that complained, not counting with tam and his cousin) now seems to be that people can easily go back and make a history of posts you thought would be anonymous and untraceable.

My opinion is that people shouldn't go around saying things that they might regret in the future. And if they are (for example, whistle-blowing), they should take measures to protect their identity.

"My opinion is that people shouldn't go around saying things that they might regret in the future. "

Hi I am the 1:14 PM guy and I have only 1 thing to say to this- "think of the children". Seriously, you are saying that I should not say what I might regret in the future. Fuck You. You should be the new Palin of the Republicans. You are the person who would be supporting the patriot act and carrying of ID for any job whatsoever, and denying food to those who refuse to reveal their identity. I hope you find yourself in Communist China, then you will know the consequences of what you are saying. At this point, the assclown Mike needs to come out and defend himself, or else he is that i.e a HYPPOCRITE!

Re:

Seriously, you are saying that I should not say what I might regret in the future.

That seems pretty basic. If you're not willing to accept the consquences of your actions, you'd better be darn sure you've protected yourself against them. Where "I hope Mike doesn't change the privacy features in a way I don't like" doesn't qualify as darn sure. It just seems really strange that anyone so rabidly concerned about privacy doesn't already use some kind of anonymous proxy.

Re: Conviction of your words

"Like for copyright, this is a right Mike has decided you should not have"

- A bit presumptuous - no ?

"You dont have a right to profit from your own invention"

- I do not recall Mike ever stating this, possibly you could provide a citation. My guess is that you are throwing out wild and baseless accusations because you feel that Mike does not share your views regarding what has become known as intellectual property.

"you dont have a right to remain anonymous "

- Again, I do not see where this comes from. Perhaps you could enlighten everyone how your anon status has been compromised beyond what it was prior to the icon.

"So dont come here expecting that you have any rights."

- Visitation of this website has not removed any of my rights. WTH are you talking about? If you want to get upset about removal of your rights, I think you are looking in the wrong place.

"The only right you have is the right to own up to your statements and stand by them"

Re: Conviction of your words

If only people would get this riled up about the actual issues this blog discusses - now wouldn't that be something. It never ceases to amaze me how some people can pour so much energy into things that are so trivial in the grand scheme of things, rather than directing that energy toward something productive.

Many of the registered users of this site dont usually add much to the discussions, mostly it's the anons who bring much to the discussions. The only think happens if you register with TD is that you guys think that you are somehow more elite or your opinions matter the most. And somehow even though the registered users claim to be more intelligent like the poster above, they always end up feeding the trolls. In short anonymous is the way of life. Though I guess with Mike not responding, he must be the hyppocrite everyone talks about.

Go Ahead... Levy the Tax.

I currently purchase all my music through iTunes (Unless the artist is doing something right (Trent Reznor, Radiohead, etc.). This'll save me a TON of money in the long run. Hell, I'd be paying for it: why not torrent it? Plus I can throw in my TV shows and movies, because it'd be a blanket media license right? Treat me like a child and I will respond as a child...